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Sabah
From the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabah Sabah (Malay pronunciation: saˈbah) is a state of Malaysia located on the northern portion of Borneo Island. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest, and Indonesia's Kalimantan region to the south. The Federal Territory of Labuan is an island just off the Sabah coast. Sabah shares maritime borders with Vietnam in the west and the Philippines to the north and east. Kota Kinabalu is the capital city, the economic centre of the state and the seat of the Sabah state government. Other major towns in Sabah include Sandakan and Tawau. As of the 2015 census in Malaysia, the state's population is 3,543,500.19 Sabah has an equatorial climate with tropical rainforests and abundant animal and plant species. The state has long mountain ranges on the west side which form part of the Crocker Range National Park. Kinabatangan River, second longest river in Malaysia runs through Sabah and Mount Kinabalu is the highest point of Sabah as well as of Malaysia. Sabah (together with its neighbour Sarawak) has a greater level of autonomy in administration, immigration, and judiciary which differentiates it from the Malaysian Peninsula states. The Yang di-Pertua Negeri is the head of state although its functions are largely ceremonial.125 Next in the hierarchy are the state legislative assembly and the state cabinet.12125 The chief minister is the head of government as well the leader of the state cabinet.125 The legislature is based on the Westminster system and therefore the chief minister is appointed based on his or her ability to command the majority of the state assembly.12126 While local authorities being fully appointed by the state government owing to the suspension of local elections by the federal government. Legislation regarding state elections is within the powers of the federal government and not the state.12 The assembly meets at the state capital, Kota Kinabalu. Members of the state assembly are elected from 73 constituencies which are delineated by the Election Commission of Malaysia and do not necessarily have the same voter population sizes.127 A general election for representatives in the state assembly must be held every five years, when the seats are subject of universal suffrage for all citizens above 21 years of age. Sabah is also represented in the federal parliament by 25 members elected from the same number of constituencies. Prior to the formation of Malaysia in 1963, the then North Borneo interim government submitted a 20-point agreement to the Malayan government as conditions before North Borneo would join the federation. Subsequently, North Borneo legislative assembly agreed on the formation of Malaysia on the conditions that North Borneo's rights would be safeguarded. North Borneo then entered Malaysia as an autonomous state with autonomous laws in immigration control and Native Customary Rights (NCR), and the territory name was changed to "Sabah". However, under the administration of the United Sabah National Organisation (USNO) led by Mustapha Harun, this autonomy has been gradually eroded with federal government influence and hegemony with a popular belief amongst Sabahans that both USNO and UMNO have been working together in permitting illegal immigrants from the southern Philippines and Indonesia to stay in the state and become citizens to vote for Muslim parties.128 This was continued under the Sabah People's United Front (BERJAYA) administration led by Harris Salleh with a total of 73,000 Filipino refugees from the southern Philippines were registered.129 In addition, the cession of Labuan island to federal government by the Sabah state government under BERJAYA rule and unequal sharing and exploitation of Sabah's resources of petroleum have become grievances often raised by Sabahans, which has resulted in strong anti-federal sentiments and even occasional call for secession from the federation amongst the people of Sabah. Until the 2008 Malaysian general election, Sabah along with the states of Kelantan and Terengganu, were the only three states in Malaysia that had ever been ruled by opposition parties not part of the ruling BN coalition. Under Joseph Pairin Kitingan, PBS formed the state government after winning the 1985 state election and ruled Sabah until 1994. In the 1994 state election, despite PBS winning the elections, subsequent cross-overs of PBS assembly members to the BN component party resulted in BN having majority of seats and hence took over the helm of the state government.130 A unique feature of Sabah politics was a policy initiated by then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in 1994 whereby the chief minister's post is rotated among the coalition parties every two years regardless of the party in power at the time, thus theoretically giving an equal amount of time for each major ethnic group to rule the state. However, in practice this system was problematic as it is too short for any leader to carry out long term plans. This practice was then since stopped. Political intervention by the federal authorities, for example, an introduction and later abolition of the chief minister's post and earlier PBS-BERJAYA conflict in 1985, along with co-opting rival factions in East Malaysia, are examples of political tactics used by the then UMNO-led federal government to control and manage the autonomous power of the Borneo states.133 The federal government however tend to view that these actions are justifiable as the display of parochialism amongst East Malaysians is not in harmony with nation building. This complicated Federal-State relationship has become a source of major contention in Sabah politics.90 In the 2018 general election, Shafie Apdal's Sabah Heritage Party (WARISAN) secured an electoral pact with the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and People's Justice Party (PKR) of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition. On 9 May 2018, this coalition and the Barisan Nasional ended in a tie. However, as six BN elected representatives crossed over to WARISAN,135136 and after a short-lived constitutional crisis, a coalition of WARISAN, DAP and PKR formed a majority government on 12 May 2018 and became effective since that day. See also: Government of Sabah, Local government in Sabah, Cabinet of Sabah,